Winter Ballet/Tap

Grandparents here you go- Reagan in all her glory at her tap/ballet lesson. Once a month we are allowed in to watch them, otherwise as you can see in the video they get a little distracted with all of us there.

Pirates

 

People with Autism have things they fixate on. For Daniel right now it's Pirates. He LOVES all things Pirates.

 But was is really fun and exciting for me as a Mom is that this time last year at the beginning of Kindergarten,  it was like pulling teeth to get him to write/draw anything. 6 months later it was like a light switch went on and he was drawing everything. Then suddenly at the beginning of this year he's gone 3D. He makes everything out of paper. Above is a pirate hat he made, below are his "hook" and his peg leg. He gets frustrated as he can see what he wants in his minds eye and tries so hard to duplicate it. He wants to make the jump to wood but he just doesn't have the strength to handle a saw or a hammer.

 If anyone wants to get him something for Christmas send lots of tape and paper. We go through tons! We have to ration it out. But we don't want to stifle this developmental leap for him. He still won't color anything and pictures are drawn with only one color usually black but hey, we're making progress.

Fishing the Kasilof River

As usual I am way behind in blogging, so to start catching up here's a post.
This summer we went again with our now neighbor Lowell Darrington dip net fishing on the Kasilof river. Let me just say I was not looking forward to it... Last year it rained, we got the trailer stuck in the sand and spent several hours getting it out, we were just starting to figure out all of Daniel's problems and he would just scream and cry the whole time. I was really dragging my feet about going but I am SO glad we did.
We hit 3 beautiful days in a row of glorious sunshine which is rare up here. I stayed in the sun as much as I could trying to take in my yearly dose of Vitamin D for the year. We went not only with Lowell but 2 other neighbor families as well and it was good to get to know them better.

Reagan found this rope on the beach and decided it was her Rapunzel hair. That's one of the neighbor kids behind her. Unfortunately this was the only picture we took while there. They had a blast playing on the beach. When the tide came in one day I took Daniel and Reagan down to play in the water- talk about a mud fight. I should have gotten pictures. They were covered in mud.  Daniel has spent the last year in physical and occupational therapy which made a world of a difference this year. They worked with him on the sensory issues and feeling the sand wasn't an issue this year and he's stronger now so he can handle walking through the sand which took so much out of him last year. It was really good for me to go with him again this year and to be able to see the difference  between the two years and the progress he has made.
We came home with about 15 fish per family which is fine for us as we aren't huge fish eaters and I still have some canned from previous years.
It was a beautiful, wonderful trip with sunny weather, 3 volcano's in the distance, the ocean, sand at our feet. Here's hoping we can replicate it next year!

Flat Top Mountain

 Those of you who know me well know that I think exercise is a 4 letter word. I don't mind it if it has purpose, but just to exercise for the fun of it? No thank you! I'm definitely not a hiker, heck I'm not an outdoors person. Give me a book and a kitchen and I'm happy.

Well, some women in my new ward hike Flat Top Mountain every Monday night after the kids are in bed. (Remember, we have extended periods of light right now.) For some crazy reason I got it in my head to hike it with them. Now you need to understand that in Alaska as I said in the last post, hiking usually means you are going straight up. I mean hugging the mountain straight up and this was no exception. I can hike but going like that is more than I can do. So I'm very proud of the fact that I made it (with lots of stops to catch my breath!) at least 3/4 of the way up the mountain. This was my view from where I rested while the others went to the top. At the top of the picture is the port of Anchorage, it's a long ways away from up there.
Not sure I'm going to make it back this week. We'll see if I'm up for more torture

Thunderbird Falls

 

Not the greatest picture of the Falls. But I'm thinking I'll take my Dad's cousin Vern here when he comes to visit next week and we'll get some pictures of the falls from below. This was taken pretty much directly across from the falls.

 

The extra kid is a neighbor who lives down the street named Everest who insisted on being in the picture with us. It was raining off and on, which is the reason for the rain coats.

 This was a fabulous hollow tree the kids found to play in. Why do you need toys when you have hollow trees?

One of the cool things about our hike in was that directly across from us on a cliff ledge Reagan pointed out a Bald Eagle just sitting there. We got to spend some time observing it in the wild. It was pretty cool. We also got to see Salmon swimming in the stream from the waterfall. I'm looking forward to going back again soon. It's one of the easier Alaska hikes. I say easier because here in Alaska pretty much all hikes go straight up. and while this one does too, it quickly even out a bit.

One Fine Day

 

A beautiful day and we just couldn't resist being outside in the water. Luckily Goose Lake is much warmer than Campbell Creek. Daniel was a therapy so Reagan and I played hookey and went by ourselves and enjoyed the heat. 

While we were there a Mom had left her toddler in a stroller and her dog tied to it as she helped another child in the bathroom. Something startled the dog and off that dog went. And boy did it go! The baby went flying and luckily was unhurt, but the stroller and the dog hurtled off through umbrellas, strollers, kids and adults flying as they collided. It was probably at least 10 mins before they were able to get the dog to stop. I think the stroller flying behind it just made the poor dog run faster. It was quite a sight to see.

 

Reagan and I felt guilty so we went and picked Daniel up from therapy and went back to the beach with him. We stayed there until it was time for dinner. If you have a good day up here you make every moment count.

Beaver's Lodge

 One morning after Paul had gotten off work from a night shift we walked down to Takhu lake and went fishing as a family. True to our family tradition we caught nothing. However the kids found this pile of brush that they were absolutely certain was a beaver's home. Having recently watched The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe, they were sure that Mr and Mrs. Beaver lived there and they spent half and hour trying to find the door so they could go visit them. It was SO cute!